TEACHING 101.......

Jimzy logging in.......



SO....we got off to our first day of teaching with a bang (in the view of Jessie, Jim and Brent who were at the second site in Bahati, Kimathi Information Centre). After a few hiccups in the start, we were able to get through the ice breakers that "Brent pulled out of the hat". Our students were a tad bit short of excellent - interactive, enthuiastic, attentive and showed up in huge numbers. Fortunately, Brent used his teaching experience to delve through the introductory material. This rubbed off well onto Jessie and myself who taught different sections of the material with as much vigour. Soon, I realised teaching isn't so easy. You have to keep tabs on a number of issues concurrently. What and how well did you just deliver the last pieces of information, what comes next, how much time did you take up, how much time is left, are the students fully grasping your concepts, are you grasping the concepts, when is it best to ask questions; I'll clearly have more respect for teachers henceforth. We are located in a church building and Morris, a church leader of sorts asked us to have prayers before and after each training session which depcits the presence and strength of the church/religion in this Nairobi. The location is great, fenced off and has a gate which gives a heightened sense of security. We have benches in our classroom that are not unlike church pews, a black board and even a water toilet in the facility. The neighbourhood is a cross between a residential area and a small commercial center.

Kibera, our second teaching site had an equally eventful day. It was in a different location from last year-a more central location with a strong enterprenual enviroment according to Alvina. This is where Art, Alvina, Kevin, Jairo, Stephen and sometimes Nancy are going to be located for the next 3 weeks. The room is much smaller and they have about 15 participants.

There is a 3rd site is at Sinai where Qaisara, Caroline, Lillian and John taught. They have to themselves about 20 particiapants.

The entire team met for a debriefing session at Sarova PanAfric Hotel to recap their day's work and make plans for a better teaching day 2. Before we left the PanAfric, Brent had good old Felix contact one of his people to get us some safari trip information. While he was on phone, so as to ensure the person on the other end took this offer seriously he said, "....there is some V.I.P's here;you need to come to their hotel room....". So the next time you are in Kenya and need something done urgently -use the V.I.P card. It was on to our guesthouse where I took a quick shower, joined the rest of the team in hq and discussed with Lucy, Felix's travel contact about some safari fares. We then took a trip to Siam Thai, a restaurant on Unga house where the food was pretty good. We retreated to the guesthouse but not before we learnt our last lesson for the day-do not make assumptions about cab fare. Not everyone knows what round trip means. As I sign off, we are in Alvina and Jessie's room playing poker, Brent's going to take a shower and looking forward to tomorrow. Apparently Art keeps Brent out of the room when.............................till tomorrow.



......Jimzy logging out!